Cast:
Scott Short – Benjamin McKenzie (The O.C.)
Len Pothier – Noah Taylor (Tomb Raider, Almost Famous)
Michael Brown – Joe Pantoliano (The Matrix, Daredevil)
Curtis Coates – Jake Gyllenhall (Donnie Darko, Jarhead)
Shiva – Alyson Hannigan (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, American Pie)
Marcel Alexandre – Jonathan Tucker (Texas Chainsaw Massacre ’03, Hostage)
DrewForest – James Bade Dale (24 Season 3)
Greaper – Steel Chambers (Who Wants to be a Superhero)
Frostbite – Clancy Brown (Lost Season 2, Starship Troopers)
Chill – Paula Garces (Harold and Kumar, The Shield Season 6)
Blizzard – Garrett Hedlund (Four Brothers, Troy)
Snowman – Al Weaver (Doom, The Merchant of Venice)
Mayor Joel Burton – Fred Willard (American Wedding, Everybody Loves Raymond)
Disclaimer: I plan on doing a two-season episodic Nightshade: The Series, one for every year between the main part of Nightshade 2, and this script. I already have the series planned out, each episode with it’s own synopsis, ready to go for when I start writing. Because of that, there are some things that are talked about in this, such as Michael finding out Nightshade’s true identity, which is going to happen over the course of that series. So there may be parts you feel like you missed something on, but don’t worry, you in fact did not miss anything during the first two scripts, and I explain these sentences the best I can with other character’s dialogue.
NIGHTSHADEIII
WRITTEN BY:
Jeff Long
FIRST DRAFT: 13-08-06
Opening credits roll as the song ‘Planet Hell’ by Nightwish plays. Some names that show up are frozen in ice, others with just the bottom of the names frozen and icicles hanging down, and still others covered in snow. The final name to come up is the actor for Scott/Nightshade, and his name breaks through the ice that’s covering it. After his name leaves the screen, the title of Nightshade appears perfectly normal with no ice on it. Then the III shows up next to it, completely carved from ice. The title stays there for a minute before rushing at the screen and covering it, putting us in darkness.
Open On:
EXT. ST. WAINLUK BANK – DAY - AERIAL SHOT
The giant gothic building is surrounded by a legion of police cruisers, all with their lights flashing and doors opened. Most of the police officers are bent down behind the open doors of their cars, aiming their guns out from either overtop or the side, but there are a few that feel venturous and are away from the shelter of their cars.
INT. ST. WAINLUK BANK - MAIN ROOM
The room is empty of living people and all is quiet as almost everything is covered in a layer of ice, including sections of the floor. There are even a few icicles hanging from the ceiling. There are also five ice sculptures of cops at various points in the room and in various poses. The windows are frozen over as well, creating a rainbow of colors on the floor in the spots where the sunlight tries to shine through.
INT. ST. WAINLUK BANK - VAULT ROOM
A gigantic vault door is almost completely frozen except for the handle and a fist-sized hole in the ice, revealing just that much of the metal vault door underneath. A young 23-year-old girl in a white tank-top, seemingly not feeling cold from all the ice, has an aging old man tightly by his collar.
GIRL
Either open the damn door, old man, or tell me how to!
BANK MANAGER
You’ll never get inside that vault!
The bank manager spits onto the girl’s face. The girl screams in anger and suddenly the old man begins to freeze over, ice creeping from the girl’s closed fist, over his shirt and then it spreads in all directions until he is simply another ice sculpture. Still screaming in anger, the girl backs up and then slams her fist forward, shattering the sculpture into millions of tiny little pieces.
EXT. ST. WAINLUK BANK – DAY
Chief of Police MICHAEL BROWN is bent down behind the door of his squad car as he reaches in and stretches out his CB radio.
MICHAEL
Dispatch, this is Chief Brown requesting immediate back up! Send all available units!
DISPATCH
(V.O.)
Copy that, Chief. (pause) There is something you should know. Some of the earlier witnesses have been talking with the Press. They know about the girl that can freeze objects.
MICHAEL
(rolling eyes) This day just keeps getting better. Last thing I need is a media frenzy.
He hangs up the CB radio and grabs a megaphone from the seat and stands up to his full height as he raises it to his mouth.
MICHAEL
This is your final warning. Come out with your hands up and no harm will come to you!
A few minutes pass but he gets no response from inside the building. One of his cops standing nearby looks over at him.
COP
What should we do?
Michael opens his mouth to answer, but before any sound can come out, they hear the sound of an approaching engine. Michael looks back just in time to see NIGHTSHADE zooming down the street towards them, riding his motorcycle. The white N’s on his motorcycle and helmet are no longer white, but are now bright silver. He weaves through a tight space between yellow barriers that had been put up to keep citizens back, and turns directions. He zooms through the parking lot, looking for a free space to go through between cop cars but finding none.
The cops all turn and point their guns at them, but Michael raises his hands up.
MICHAEL
No! Don’t shoot him! Stand down!
Finally Nightshade spots a yellow barrier that had been knocked over onto its side during the course of the day, and had one end sticking straight up into the air. Nightshade lines himself up perfectly and guns his engine. He hits the ‘ramp’ and flies up into the air, over the closet cop car, and onto the other side. Once on the ground again, he speeds up even more and tilts his bike up onto its back tire, popping a wheelie. He reaches the stairs and slams the front tire down as the back tire reaches the first step, and he drives up the stairs and crashes through the bank doors.
MICHAEL
(whispering) Good-luck, Nightshade.
INT. ST. WAINLUK BANK - MAIN ROOM
Once inside the bank, Nightshade is taken by surprise when he discovers almost the entire room is ice, and his motorcycle skids out on the icy floor, crashing through a wooden teller’s booth.
Leaving his motorcycle in the rubble, Nightshade gets to his feet and brushes some splinters off. He removes his helmet, dropping it to the floor by the bike, and puts on his cap. He moves his head, looking around the room as he searches for the girl.
Nightshade’s suit is slightly different now then in the previous 2 scripts. The white N on his cap is now also silver and there is a light layer of silver covering the very top and the very bottom parts of his sunglasses. Also, the knuckles on his gloves now have blunt little silver spikes on them.
He walks throughout the room, inspecting everything and looking behind all likely hiding places, trying to locate the girl. When he comes across the first of the cop ice sculptures, he looks it over and inspects it. He tries to look in it to see if he could see the cop under all the ice, but it becomes clear that the ice is not covering the cop - the ice is the cop.
Nightshade moves on, knowing that it is hopeless to try to help the frozen police. They were already dead. He slowly makes his way down the narrow carpeted hall, making sure to peek his head in all of the small offices he comes across throughout the hall. Just as he is about to look into the vault room, the girl leaps out right in front of him and puts her hands up.
Before Nightshade has the chance to do anything, her palms begin to turn white as a swirling mist develops from them, exiting her hands and growing larger and more solid as it moves out and reaches him. Frost begins to develop along his skin and clothes, but that is the extent of the damage done to him. As the girl continues to try to freeze him, she gets an expression of ‘What the hell is going on?’ when she realizes that Nightshade is not turning to ice.
The girl stops her attack and Nightshade opens his jacket wide for her to see the wires running throughout the inside of it like his own personal electric blanket, only the wires are red hot. He holds one of his gloved hands up and the silver spikes are now burning red with heat as well. However that doesn’t stop there from being traces of frost on parts of him.
NIGHTSHADE
As you can see, your attack is pointless on me. So how about we just sit down with a nice cup of coffee - or maybe a bowl of ice cream for you - and we talk this through?
The girl bursts out laughing.
GIRL
(giggling) Shiva does not negotiate.
NIGHTSHADE
Yeah, I’m not too fond of peace talks either.
Nightshade whips out his guns and begins to fire at Shiva, but she kicks a nearby table into the air and uses one hand to quickly freeze it, while using the other to freeze the floor below it while it was still in the air, attaching the two sections of ice so that the frozen table was held up in the air and acted as a shield. Nightshade’s bullets embed into it and send slight cracks all throughout it, but it does not shatter.
Nightshade puts his guns away and reaches into his pocket, taking out three small metal balls with tiny spikes on them. He tosses them and seconds after they attach to the shield of ice, they explode and ice shatters everywhere, pelting Shiva as she is directly behind the make-shift shield of ice.
Screaming, Shiva tries to freeze Nightshade again, but just like last time, it fails, leaving only specks of frost on him. As Nightshade takes out his guns again, Shiva turns and freezes a nearby metal pole that was attached to another pole further down the hall, by a thick red rope. She breaks the now-iced pole off from the rope, which also partly froze, and grabs it in both hands. She jabs it towards Nightshade, but he turns to his side and it narrowly misses him.
She slams it down though, and hits the end of one of Nightshade’s guns, knocking it out of his hand. She pulls the pole back and Nightshade returns to his previous position. She runs at him and slams the pole down, but he dodges and rolls out of the way of a third strike. When he comes back up it hits him square in the chest and sends him flying back. He lands on the icy floor of the Main Room, loosing his grip on his second gun as he slides across the ice on his back.
As he starts to get to his feet again, he slips slightly on the ice but balances himself before he falls. Once he is up to his full height again, Shiva has reached him and he ducks to avoid a swipe of the pole that would have hit him in the side of the head otherwise. While ducked, he punches her in the gut and she doubles over. He stands all the way up again and kicks her, sending her sprawling back across the ice.
As Nightshade waits for her to stand up, he reaches inside his jacket and takes out a small metal pole, hardly taller in length then his own palm. He wraps his hand around it and pushes a button on it. It extends upwards and downwards until it is a long metal pole taller then him.
Shiva dives forward to attack again and Nightshade blocks with his metal staff. They duel back and forth in a complicated series of blocks and attacks of all speeds and strength as their feet move them across the room, once in awhile finding traction on un-frozen parts of the floor. The rainbow of colors from the frozen windows dance over them as they fiercely duel across the room.
During the staff-to-pole fight, Shiva goes to once again swipe her pole sideways at Nightshade and he twirls his body around behind a frozen cop that he had backed up into. Shiva’s ice pole slams into the sculpture and the cop’s head is shattered. Nightshade comes out from behind the statue from the other side and Shiva turns around to knock his forceful jab down. While her pole is still on top of his staff, Nightshade uses all his strength to slam it up and while holding her pole above his head with his staff, he slams the bottom of his staff forward and hits his opponent in her chest.
She stumbles back and slips on the ice. As she lands with a hard thump, a trio of icicles fall loose from the ceiling. One lands inches away from her head and she has to roll away to avoid a second one from impaling her in the chest. Nightshade slams his staff upwards to shatter the final icicle in mid-air before it had the chance to hit him.
Shiva gets back to her feet just in time to be met with a fist to the face, a second fist to her chest, followed up by a strong side-kick to her chest as well, knocking her back over a teller’s booth and falling to the floor behind it, disappearing from Nightshade’s view.
Nightshade approaches the teller’s booth carefully, but when he peers over it to see what became of Shiva, he quickly slams his head back to avoid a blast of ice. Shiva jumps back out and while Nightshade is still distracted, kicks him, knocks him down onto the icy floor, and then kicks him in the ribs, sending him sliding across the room.
She snarls with joy and points her palm out towards Nightshade’s crashed motorcycle. Swirling white mist begins to form in her hands. Just as she is about to fire, Nightshade, knowing that he could not get to his feet and over to her in time, rears his hand back and throws his staff. It flies across the room, cutting through the air, and slams right into Shiva’s arm, making a very loud crack noise to come from it as she screams in pain. Due to the staff hitting her arm at the last second, Shiva accidentally fires slightly to the side of the bike and the debris of the booth freezes instead.
As Nightshade approaches her, Shiva turns and shoots ice out at him. Knowing that he would not freeze however, she aims for the very bottom of his boots and the floor around them. It only takes a couple seconds for Nightshade’s boots to freeze solidly to the floor. Without giving him the chance to pull any tricks, Shiva turns and runs out of the room and back down the hall. Nightshade tries to lift each foot with all his might, but his boots are frozen to the floor really good. Sighing with frustration, Nightshade leans down and begins to untie his boots.
Now wearing only socks on his feet, Nightshade makes his way across the room, trying his best not to slip on the ice, retrieves his gun, and reaches the solid floor of the hallway. As he runs down it towards an opened window, he picks up his second gun. At the end of the hall he reaches the window and looks out into the back ally behind the bank. On the ground below there are five recently-frozen cops. Nightshade jumps onto the ledge and leaps down to the ground below, landing hard on his feet. He then takes off at a run down the ally.
Just as he reaches the end of the ally, he spots a manhole cover moving overtop of a sewer entrance and rushes towards it. He tries to remove it, but it won’t budge. He tries to stick his finger in one of the small holes in the top and discovers with dismay that it was frozen from the other side.
Even though the girl known as Shiva had gotten away, it appeared that Nightshade had stopped her from robbing the bank. It may not have been a clear victory for him, but it couldn’t be counted as a loss either.
INT. NIGHTSHADE’S BASE - LIVING ROOM
‘No Tears’ by Scarface booms loudly over a small CD player as the camera pans across the neat and tidy living room and settles on a small enclave, almost like a large walk-in closet, where there are three arcade machines set up.
LEONARD POTHIER is in the arcade room, moving the controls and blasting away at whatever onscreen monsters were invading the digital city.